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Starting a warlock
= Introduction = So, you're thinking of playing a Warlock? This page is intended to give a short overview of what to do over the first 10 levels or so, just to get you started on the right path. If you're looking for more of an overview of the class's abilities, see the main Warlock page. For more advanced topics, see the Warlock Tactics. For even more info on Warlocks, see Category:Warlocks. For a more general overview on starting out playing WoW, see the Newbie Guide = Race Selection = If you're a power-player, you'll want to consider the various Racial Traits when choosing what race to play. You might also consider the racial Attributes, but after the first 20 levels or so these become largely irrelevant, as the items you've gained will outstrip any racial bonuses. *Alliance :Gnomes :An overall good choice for any caster, gnomes offer a good collection of racials for Alliance warlocks. Expansive Mind directly increases your mana pool, and Escape Artists is quite useful (and slated to become instant-cast in Burning Crusade), especially in PvP. Arcane Resistance, like Forsaken Shadow Resistance, is a minor benefit, but still useful, and Engineering Specialist gives gnome characters a leg up on what is usually considered the best PvP profession in the game. :Humans :Generally considered to have the worst racial abilities for warlocks, humans bring little to the table when compared to other races. Diplomacy, while generally useful for faction gains, does not synergize with the class, and Sword and Mace specilization offers little to a pure caster. Warlocks have little use for Spirit, and so the Human Spirit does little beyond possibly offset Demonic Embrace's penalty. Perception is perhaps the only racial that warlocks directly benefit from, since it allows a greater chance of detecting rogues and Druids on the prowl in Cat Form. *Horde :Forsaken :Forsaken are a good choice for a warlock. Cannibalize synergizes with Life Tap very well, particularly if talents points are spent on Improved Life Tap, and reduces downtime against humanoid and undead opponents. Will of the Forsaken is considered one of the best racials in the game for PvP, and is helpful against other warlocks and Priests. Shadow Resistance, while an overall minor boost, is still useful, and enhances the class' ability to resist Shadow spells and effects. Underwater Breathing is the only racial ability that is of no particular use to Forsaken warlocks, who can cast Unending Breath on themselves whenever they need to stay underwater for prolonged periods of time. :Orc :Orc racials are generally considered to be less powerful than Forsaken racials currently, but they are still a viable choice. Currently, the greatest benefit that orc racials offer to warlocks is their 25% resistance to stun, which is of immense help against Rogues, who are considered to be one of the hardest classes for warlocks to defeat. Axe Specialization is of no use to warlocks, who can not use axes, and given that warlocks do not generally rely on melee attacks, Blood Fury is of limited use. Command is of moderate use currently, but given the situational use of pets and the differences in their damage output, is not always useful. :While Orcs may seem like one-trick ponies for warlocks, the Burning Crusade expansion will improve their utility directly and indirectly. Blood Fury will include a bonus to spell damage, and the upcoming changes to Demonology (especially the addition of the Fel Guard) and the implementation of pet scaling (or pets, such as warlock demons, improving as the owner improves her/his stats) means that orc warlocks who invest in Demonology will recieve a considerably greater benefit from Command than they do now. Hardiness is being nerfed so that it only provides a 15% chance to resist stun, but it is expected that the other changes will make up for this loss. For more casual gamers, there's really no major difference between the races - choose the race that you want to play, whether for its looks, its voice, or because its simply good fun! = Early Leveling = The easiest way to progress through the early levels is to simply do any and all quests you can find. Not only will you breeze through the first 5 to 10 levels, but you'll get useful gear and precious money. Money is particulary important so you can purchase spells for yourself and for your pets. You will spend levels 1 to 5 in your starting town. Make sure you get all the spells you can from your trainer. Between level 5 and 6 you'll find yourself heading off to your second town and a new trainer who can teach you various things. At the second town, repeat the process - do each and every quest you can find. It's important to keep up with your spells and your gear. Now is also an appropriate time to start training in your chosen professions. = Notable Early Quests = The following lists are not intended to be comprehensive, but cover a selection of the best quests in the starting areas from levels 1 to 10. Humans * Brotherhood of Thieves - nice early weapon reward = On Soloing and Grouping = Soloing The best way to solo is to send in voidwalker pet (often abreviated as VW) give it a couple of seconds to aggro then DOT (damage over time. These include Immolate, Corruption, and Curse of Weakness). Wait for mob to die then repeat. If you get aggro simply cast shadow bolt until it dies. If you don't have a voidwalker simply DOT and shadow bolt. Pets Each pet has its own special benefits to you, your party, and those around you. Some may be good for PvP, while some may be useful for PvE (Player Versus Environment, i.e. World Creatures). For each pet given, each quest to obtain the creature will be given. Imp Warlock soloing is all about pet management and spell management. Your first pet, the Imp, is great at dealing additional damage, but be prepared to take some hits in the early levels. An effective early tactic for soloing is to set your imp to attack while you cast your first Curse on the target. At this point, you can cast Fear on the enemy, and start blasting away with Shadow Bolt while it runs around. Be wary - Fearing the enemy may cause them to come back with friends. You should have almost no trouble at all soloing for your first ten levels. Always protect yourself by fearing additional enemies if the situation arises, and run! Don't worry if your Imp dies - you can summon one anew for free. You can also start casting a Shadow Bolt immediately after telling your Imp to attack (ctrl-1, usually) and then let off a Curse to get the most damage in before the mob gets within melee range. When the mob gets within melee range you can hit it with Immolate, Corruption or another Shadow Bolt. Always make sure you have Demon Skin self-buff active before you go into combat, and it is also a good idea to obtain armor kits at the earliest opportunity and to upgrade them as you level. Imp Quest Gnomes You should only start this quest if you are level two or above, with your experience bar halfway completed. To obtain the quest, speak with the Warlock trainer in the Coldridge Valley hold, named Anvilmar. He will be in the back room, past the forge and hunter trainers. Upon entrance of the room, look up and you will see a set of stairs. Go up the stairs and there find you will be two Gnomes. One will be labeled < Demon Trainer >, whilst one is labeled < Warlock Trainer >. You'll be seeing a lot of these, so take note of them. At level two, Sten Stoutarm will have a quest for you called 'Tainted Memorandum'. The quest will need you to find Alamar Grimm, the < Warlock Trainer >. He will in turn give you a second quest named Begginings. With your newfound quest, exit Anvilmar and proceed forward from the entrance. If you continue heading South, you will find a small camp with three men. Two of them have quests that are irrelevent to ours, but you might want to pick up the Troll killing one, because that's what we'll be doing. You're objectives for the Imp quest are as follows: Bring 3 Feather Charms to Alamar Grimm in Anvilmar. And thats just what you must do. You'll see a few trees and several creatures that are like the selectable race, Trolls. The ones you are looking for are Troll Novices. They wear different regalia than the others, donning robes and staves rather than axes. Enter the cave. Kill the first Troll you see, and turn right. Another Troll bars the way. Kill him, and step forward. You have entered a large cavern with three directions in it. Left, middle, and right. Mark the left for future notice, used in a later quest, and take the right path. You will see a small pool with a river in it, which leads up the room. There are usually 5-6 Trolls in the room, two or three being our target Novices. Take out the first troll you see and loot it. If it was the correct one, you should gain a Feather Charm. If not, keep killing Trolls until the room is cleared. Move to the other side of the river and you will see another passage with two exits. Move up until the passage is cleared of Trolls, and look to your right. If there are no Novices in there, turn around to the river and pool room. Wait until re-spawns, and continue killing until you have all three charms. Return to Alamar Grimm for your new Imp! You can purchase spells for your Imp at the < Demon Trainer > next to him. Human You can get this from the trainer outside the building. The trainer will ask for some books. You can find these over by the defias. Go across the river and north of the vineyard. There should be a little tent. Clear out the mobs from around it. In the outside the tent in the front left corner should be a small pile of books. Right click, turn in and enjoy your new pet. Undead You'll start off the game in the crypt. Go up the stairs and join the world of the Forsaken. At the top of the stairs there is a quest giver who tells you to report to the town below. Go past the gates and into the delapidated Church on your left. Inside you'll find Venya Marthand and her imp. Speak with her, and she will give you the quest Piercing the Veil. Your objective is to collect three rattlecage skulls. Go outside and take a left out the gates past the guards. At the bottom of the hill, the road takes a right turn, but if you go straight you should see the Rattlecage Skeletons mulling about. Defeat a few of them and you'll collect your skulls (as well as possibly level). Once you've claimed your objective, return to Venya Marthand in the Church and she'll reward you with the ability to summon your imp. You may speak to the Demon Trainer nearby until you leave Deathknell to train your imp. Voidwalker Around 10th level you can get a quest from a Warlock trainer that allows you to summon a Voidwalker if you have a Soul Shard. Human You can get these from your trainer. It requires you to kill a person in the pumpkin patch in east Elwynn Forest. You will most likely need a little help on this one. Take the road east of Goldshire. The pumpkin patch is about 3/4 of the way to the small river and a little bit south. In the southern house are 3 humans around level 10. Pull them out and kill them. Its rather simple but you probely will need some help to kill them all. Loot and turn in. One very effective way to use a Voidwalker when confronted with a grouping of mobs is to stand at a safe distance, select your desired mob, and send your Voidwalker out to make contact with it. If you then immediately recall your Voidwalker, the mob will follow. Allow your Voidwalker to bring your enemy within range of your Corruption or Shadow Bolt spells, then put him back on the offensive, keeping the enemy occupied while you drain it's life away from a safe distance. One by one, you lure your enemies away and vanquish them. As you become more confident, you can also have your Voidwalker tag 2 or more enemies before recalling him and the enemies to within range of your destructive power. Grouping It's important to consider what you want your role in a party to be. Essentially, you can become a master of pets, and focus your group play on effective pet control. Alternatively, you can become a straight damage-dealer by nuking with your Shadow Bolt and other direct damage spells. In addition, it's important to apply the proper curse for a given situation, and other effective DoT spells. Corruption is very powerful and will help your party take down enemies quickly. I personally favor Curse of Agony, which provides additional damage over time. Summoing is another thing. When you hit level 20 you get Ritual of Summoning which summons another party member. This helps you all get to the instance faster and is a big help. Be extremly careful with fear. If you decide its absolutly nessesary keep Curse of Recklessness on hand. This counters fear and will bring it running back. I really find this usefully in very limited situations. But they are there. These include -Priest is low on health and is getting pounded on. If you tank isn't getting aggro and you can't kill in time go ahead and fear but try and nuke it while its feared so it will come to you and not priest. -There is no chance to aggro anymore. These include event situations where its immposible to pull more. Go ahead fear. -Its the only chance. If you are 100% going to die if you don't fear do it. A small chance is better then none. Also at later levels you'll be required to banish. This halts all elementals for a time letting the group kill the others without the DPS of the elemental. Your going to need to keep it up as long as nessesary. Soul Shards Soul Shards Are required to summon pets besides imp, summon, make healthstones and soulstones, and some other things. You can make these by casting Drain Soul or shadowburn on dieing mobs. If they die within 5 seconds of casting shadowburn or while drain soul is still channeling you'll get a shard. You'll need a good number of them as to not run out. These do NOT stack. As so you need to have a good amount but not so much you can't loot thing. Around 6-10 is probely a good number if you have some extra bags. If you don't have extra bag space you might consider making them as you go along.After your level 30 quest you'll get a box of souls which is a 16 slot soul shard bag. You should probely upgrade later. = Useful Professions = The warlock can benefit directly and indirectly from many of the professions available. Primary Professions * Herbalism & Alchemy : Herbalism and Alchemy are useful for the warlock, and are essentially two Primary Professions that go hand in hand. Herbalism allows the gathering of various herbs, and the Alchemy profession allows the creation of various potions for use. Herbalism and Alchemy make for useful warlock professions because it's always handy to have plenty of health, mana, and stat-boosting potions in your arsenal for fighting. Given that several useful potions require fish, the fishing secondary profession (see below) is a wise choice for alchemists. * Skinning & Leatherworking : Skinning and Leatherworking also go together perfectly, because the skins obtained from animals can be crafted into leather armor. The downside to creating leather armor as a warlock is that you will be unable to wear it yourself. However, leather armor comes high in demand for a number of classes in the game, and you can fetch a nice price selling your wares to other players. You can then use your newfound riches to purchase your own wonderful equipment. * Tailoring : Tailoring is directly useful to the warlock for crafting Cloth armor (the only subset of armor available to warlocks). You can equip yourself with spiffy new duds, or sell it to purchase other things you need, such as weapons and trade goods. However, to skill up tailoring requires large amounts of cloth, to the extent that many warlocks refuse to take up tailoring. Instead they use the cloth they find for first aid. : It should be noted that unlike most other crafting primary professions, Tailoring does not require a gathering profession, so you can take Skinning, Herbalism, or Minning and sell the materials to other players. * Enchanting : Enchanting is another profession which the warlock can personally benefit from. "Green" items (enhanced items) are broken down into essences which you can then use to enchant your own pieces of equipment with various statboosts. * Mining & Blacksmithing : Mining and Blacksmithing serves some purpose to the warlock as you can create yourself a certain amount of weapons, but the chain mail is unusable and is largely only good for selling to other players for precious gold and silver. * Engineering : Engineering is a fun way to compliment a warlocks skillset. The very quick aoe bombs go well with the warlocks otherwise slow spells. The gimmick items, most importantly, Goblin Construction Hat and Goblin Dragon Gun, are fantastic to have, as the Hat will absorb the damage normally inflicted upon you by Hellfire. Another fun tactic for Demonology warlocks is to use the Demonic Sacrifice talent to gain a buff then use Goblin Jumper Cables to resurrect your demon in order to retain your Master Demonologist bonus. Comparitively, Gnomish Engineering far less useful to a Warlock. * Two Gathering Professions : Depending on the economy of your chosen server, you can select two gathering professions and sell everything you collect to other players for hard (virtual) currency. Since Minning and Herbalism require the use of detection abilities to gain the full benefit of the profession, and since you can only have one detection active at a time, Minning/Skinning or Herbalism/Skinning are prefered combinations. Enchanting can also be a gathering profession to a certain extent, when chosen for the ability to harvest enchanting materials (via disenchant) from Bind on Pickup items that no one in the party has a particular use for. Start your professions early! It's usually not too expensive, and you want to ensure that the gear you create with your skills is applicable to your warlock's level. Secondary Professions * Cooking * Fishing * First Aid Any or all three of the secondary professions are good for the warlock. With cooking, you can create yourself (or party members) various tasty treats for quick healing and mana regeneration. Fishing is good for getting fish to use in your recipes, or for catching random gear you can sell to vendors. First Aid is good for making bandages for quick healing after battle to recover your HP faster. First Aid works especially well for warlocks due to the spell Life Tap. Life Tap to fill up your mana between fights, and then immediately bandage to restore the life you just converted to mana, reducing your downtime to a minimum. Also, since cooking offers many more health-restoring foods than mana-restoring foods and drinks, Life Tap can be used to turn stacks of cooked fish and meats into a poor-warlock's drinks. = Long-Term Goals = Important long-term goals for the warlock include deciding how best to approach the soloing aspect to the game, your desired role in a party, and preparing yourself for late-game content (PvP, dungeons and instances, Battlegrounds, etc.) Specs What spec should you go? There are so many choices it can be hard to describe. You can see a high detail list at Warlock Talents. But I'll give you a simple idea right here. Destruction is a PvP build. It has some high DPS and focuses on your direct damage and fire spells more then shadow and DOTs. Affliction is more of a grinding build based on Shadow and DoTs. Demonology is designed to make you last longer and improve your pet. = See Also = Warlock Warlock Spells Warlock Talents Warlock Tactics ---- Warlock,Starting Warlock,Starting